The Best Scene in The Battery Was Originally Much Darker

The Best Scene in The Battery Was Originally Much Darker

Here at ModernHorrors, we’re all about celebrating just what our name implies. We love the classics like everyone, but we especially like to discuss modern genre films that we consider to be classics in the making.

I think it’s safe to say that Jeremy Gardner’s The Battery will continue down that path in the years to come. If you ask me, it’s one of the best zombie movies (if not THE best) to come along in the past decade or so. What the movie did right that so many others in the subgenre get wrong was a focus on characters. The Battery is much more about two dudes than it is about a zombie apocalypse. The zombie apocalypse certainly plays an important role, but it’s secondary to the lead characters’ story.

Part of what works so well in the character department is the humor that’s sprinkled throughout the film. It’s not exactly an all-out comedy as the humor in The Battery comes mainly from the situations the characters find themselves in.

Perhaps the funniest scene in the movie is one in which the character Mickey (Adam Cronheim) is alone in a car when a female zombie (Elise Stella) approaches. She walks up against the car, pushing her breasts against the window, and the lonely Mickey watches her and begins to masturbate. The scene reaches its climax of hilarity when Mickey is busted by his companion Ben (Gardner).

It’s one of The Battery’s most memorable scenes, but originally, it was going to be much darker and far less humorous from the sound of it. Gardner talked about it on an episode of the Killer POV podcast:

I will say that the wank scene in The Battery was originally way more than a wank. It got to that point…on the script level. I came to my senses.

Gardner explained that Mickey pinned the zombie to the hood of the car, strapped her to the hood of the car, and pulled a condom out of his pocket. Ben ended up killing her before it went any further, but clearly this would have been a much darker approach to the story.

Gardner continued:

Mickey was already unsympathetic, and it was just too far. I’m glad I came to my sense before that. Now it’s funny, and before that it was just gross.

If you ask me, Gardner made the right call in changing the scene to what ended up in the movie. Of course there’s pretty much a whole movie that caters to the alternate scenario. It’s called Deadgirl.

About Us

Established in the Fall of 2014, Modern Horrors provides an expertly curated source of news and multimedia for the modern horror fan. Gone are the days of black and red blood-spattered imagery and cheesy catch phrases. The genre has evolved. Shouldn’t your news do the same? We are Modern Horrors, and we’re just getting started.